Cyber conman dupes family of Rs 1.50 lakh

Bhubaneswar: A cyber criminal has withdrawn more than Rs 1.5 lakh from the bank accounts of a person and his daughter here. The victim Friday lodged a written complaint with the Nayapalli police on the cyber fraud. The victim is identified as Kishore Chandra Pradhan of Tarini Nagar in Salia sahi under the Nayapalli police station limits. He works as an X-ray technician at the Kalinga Hospital at Chandrasekharpur.

According to sources, Pradhan has an account with the Kalinga Hospital branch of Odisha State Co-cooperative Bank Limited (OSCB). The validity period of Pradhan’s debit card issued by the bank had expired so he went to renew it November 22.

He was allegedly asked by some of the staff of the bank to return home and the bank will do the renewal process and he need not worry.

Accordingly, he returned home without further enquiry. Two days later, her wife, who was alone at home, received a call on the mobile phone of Pradhan allegedly from the bank. The man gave his identity as Rakesh Chandra Sharma, Branch Manager, OSCB. He told Pradhan’s wife that the bank required his account details in order to complete the renewal process. Accordingly, she gave away all the details including the 16 digit ATM number and pin code.

Later, the miscreant, taking advantage of her innocence, again asked her to provide another family member’s bank account details, which she revealed as well. The gullible lady revealed the password and other details of her daughter’s bank account.

Subsequently, the conman allegedly started purchasing various products online from various e-commerce platforms. All the transactions were carried out from November 26 to 29. He later withdrew around Rs 30000 from the Allahabad Bank account of Pradhan’s daughter.

Interestingly, Pradhan did not receive any SMS from the bank about the withdrawals from his account which is a common procedure. He later came to know about the incident when the bank officials informed him about this Thursday. He blocked the transactions in all his bank accounts following the fraud.

The conman allegedly called many times over the phone and asked the family to reveal details of other accounts with other banks Friday morning, too. Police have started investigations into the matter.